


El-ahrairah and the Litter of Kittens

by Luzula



Category: Watership Down - Richard Adams
Genre: F/F, F/M, Female Relationships, Gen, Misses Clause Challenge, Mpreg, Mythology - Freeform, Storytelling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-19
Updated: 2014-12-19
Packaged: 2018-03-02 06:45:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2803313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luzula/pseuds/Luzula
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In Efrafa, Hyzenthlay tells a story to her friends: a story where a doe gets the better of El-ahrairah.</p>
            </blockquote>





	El-ahrairah and the Litter of Kittens

**Author's Note:**

  * For [legete](https://archiveofourown.org/users/legete/gifts).



> Legete, I wrote you rabbit mpreg for Yuletide. Er, I'm sorry? But it's mythological mpreg, and every mythology needs a bit of that, I think. : )
> 
> Thanks to Akamine-chan for beta-reading, and to Exeterlinden for early brainstorming help! 
> 
> There is some implied non-con on the level of canon (of the type that all the does in Efrafa seem to have been subjected to--they were "under orders").

The sun was setting on a fine day in early June, and the Right Fore Mark was on evening silflay. Nobody wanted to go back into the burrows when dusk fell: does stopped to snatch just one more mouthful of the juicy summer grass, and a buck, challenged by an officer, reluctantly backed down from a particularly fine cowslip. The sentries had to cuff a few of the youngsters to get everyone down on time. 

Still, there was no serious disobedience--everyone was too used to obeying. Hyzenthlay herself rebelled only in her mind as she trooped past the sentry and down the burrow with the others. She kept her gaze down, saw only the rump of the next rabbit in line. 

Thethuthinnang was in their usual side burrow, and Hyzenthlay nudged in beside her. They touched noses in wordless greeting. More does came in, and Hyzenthlay and Thethuthinnang made way for them. In front of her, Thayrtehain, a young doe with a fine reddish-brown fur, was shifting nervously, and her ears were laid back. Hyzenthlay could feel the tremors going through her where they touched. 

'What is it?' Hyzenthlay asked. 

Thayrtehain twitched. 'Foxglove called for me today.' 

Hyzenthlay understood. Anyone could tell that it was Thayrtehain's time for mating, but she was young, and Foxglove was one of the Owsla officers. It was her first time, and it had not been her choice. She pressed against Thayrtehain's warm flank in comfort. 

Brayanisth, an older doe with greying whiskers, was on Thayrtehain's other side. 'That oaf,' she said. 'He wouldn't know how to attract a doe if he couldn't order us around.' 

'Will I have kittens?' Thayrtehain asked, in a low voice. 

'Maybe not,' Thethuthinnang said. 'I didn't, my last time. Inlé took them back.' 

'I don't want kittens anyway, not here,' Thayrtehain said, with a spark of rebellion that gave Hyzenthlay hope of her. 'I want to go somewhere else. I want to silflay when I want and choose a mate that I want and have kittens that can play in the grass when they want.' 

'Don't we all, youngster,' Brayanisth said, and then muttered, 'When the grass turns to flayrah.' 

Hyzenthlay twitched her nose. 'I've been thinking,' she said, then lowered her voice, glancing out towards the main burrow. 'What if we go to the Council? Ask them if we can leave, outright?' 

Brayanisth made a skeptical noise, but Hyzenthlay pressed on. 'There are too many of us, everyone knows that. Especially too many does, and we're too crowded even to have kittens, most of us. Surely they realize that things would be better, both for us and for those that stay, if we leave.' 

'Could it really work, do you think?' Thayrtehain said. Hyzenthlay heard the hope in her voice, and it pained her, because she did not know if she could live up to it.

Thethuthinnang, at her side, spoke up. 'Why not? What do we have to lose?' 

Silence. It was a rhetorical question, spoken almost in bitterness: hemmed in as they were, they still had things to lose, and most of them knew it. They had seen the punishments the Council meted out. But those were for trying to break out, for rabbits who tried to run from the sentries or to fight with them. 

'If we ask, instead of trying to run, maybe they'll listen?' Hyzenthlay said. 

They began, tentatively and in low voices, to talk it out. But before they got very far, there was a scufffing noise in the run outside the burrow, and two rabbits stopping at the entrance. 'Everything all right here?' It was Foxglove, along with a sentry. 

They said nothing. 

'I said, everything all right here?'

'Why wouldn't it be?' Thethuthinnang said. 

'You never know,' Foxglove said with a hint of threat in his voice. 'I'm just checking on my Mark.' 

'Well, we were just telling stories,' Brayanisth said. 

'Oh? I could stand for some good old-fashioned story-telling,' Foxglove said. He settled down just outside the burrow. 

They had not, in fact, been telling stories, and there was a momentary confusion. Then Hyzenthlay, on a sly impulse, said: 'I was just about to tell the story of El-ahrairah and the litter of kittens.'

Thethuthinnang made a strangled little noise beside her. 

'I don't think I've heard that one,' Foxglove said. 

'Well, it's not that well known.' Among bucks, anyway. 'It happened in the time when El-ahrairah began to encourage his people to multiply again, despite the danger from the elil. Humans had come to the land, and they were killing the homba and the lendri. El-ahrairah boasted of all his litters that were filling up the earth, as if he were the one who had carried them and birthed them and given them milk, when all he had done was to mate with his wives.'

Foxglove made a small noise as if this offended his sensibilities, but said nothing. It was not the thing to interrupt a storyteller, and Hyzenthlay decided to lay it on a little thicker. 

'Anyone can mate, after all. But to carry your kittens to term, or to lose them, is not something that El-ahrairah had to do himself. His does talked among themselves and then one of them, Hlalhyaothil, went to Frith and told of El-ahrairah and his bragging. Frith shone on Hlalhyaothil so brightly that she had to close her eyes, but she stood her ground. And Frith, who was neither a buck nor a doe but had still kindled all the animals in the world, heard her request.' 

The does around Hyzenthlay murmured in approval. 

'"But El-ahrairah must agree to it himself," said Frith. "If you can outwit the Prince with a Thousand Enemies, I will grant your request." To this, Hlalhyaothil said, "Am I not also a rabbit with a thousand enemies, and a thousand friends besides? You will see."' 

'She went back to her sisters and told them of Frith's promise. They conferred among each other, taking care that El-ahrairah could not hear them.' This scene Hyzenthlay might have embroidered, had not Foxglove been there. She might have told her friends how Hlalhyaothil and her sisters had talked together at silflay, wandering freely when and where they wanted on the green turf. But that might tread too close to the line of rebellion. 

'The next day, El-ahrairah heard the blackbird sing in the morning, as he did all through the days of spring. But he was not singing his usual song. He was singing of his eggs, his eggs, his precious eggs that he had laid in his perfect nest, the best little speckled blue eggs in all the world. El-ahrairah stopped and stared up at him. "Surely you do not lay eggs," he said to the blackbird. "Why yes," said the blackbird. "Haven't you heard? It's the males' turn to do the breeding this year. Turn and turn about, you know."'

Foxglove snorted. Hyzenthlay ignored him. 

'El-ahrairah went on. He met a yona trundling along, and asked him, "I suppose you'll tell me that you have given birth to a litter?" The yona said, "No, but I will soon. Look how round my belly is!" His belly was hidden by his spines and El-ahrairah could not really see it, but the yona looked very satisfied.'

'When El-ahrairah came upon Hlalhyaothil and her friends, he said nothing of what he had heard. After some talk of the fine silflay this spring, he asked with a quivering nose, "What is that scent on you?" Hlalhyaothil replied, "I don't know. It should be our time for mating, but alas, it has not happened. Instead we smell like this. Do you know what could be the matter?" Hlalhyaothil looked quite worried.'

Hyzenthlay looked around at the does, who most of them knew the story already. One of the younger ones who did not know it asked, 'Was it their time for mating really?'

'It was,' Hyzenthlay said. 'But they found a strange-smelling thing by the humans' refuse pile, and rubbed their bottoms on it, to hide their scent.' Hyzenthlay's whiskers quivered, thinking of a piece of the story she would not tell tonight: how the does still wanted mating, and so some of them mated with each other. _That_ was not something for Foxglove to hear. 

'El-ahrairah was much alarmed by the does not coming into season. 'All the other animals will have young soon,' he said. "What is to become of us? The elil will eat us all and we will not have any litters." Hlalhyaothil said nothing to this but to twitch her whiskers in agreement.' 

'El-ahrairah wandered about in great agitation, and met a male deer and a young splay-legged fawn with tiny spots on its brown back. He watched the deer nuzzle at his fawn. "Where are your young, El-ahrairah?" said the deer. "Do you not have any?"'

'This was the last straw. "O Frith!" said El-ahrairah to the radiant sun above. "Why do all the other animals carry young and not me and the other bucks? I wish I could bear kittens, too!" And Frith replied to this, saying, "And so you shall, Prince of Rabbits, as your wives have asked of me." And El-ahrairah's belly began to swell with young, more for every day.'

Foxglove scratched at the floor and finally interrupted the story, fuming. 'I can't listen to this drivel anymore. I'm going to find myself a real storyteller. Come on,' he said to the young Owsla bucks with him. And they took themselves off down the run. 

The does waited until the three bucks had gone, and then they exploded into mirth, trying to keep it down in case the bucks should come back. 'Oh, you are priceless!' said Thethuthinnang to Hyzenthlay, nudging at her neck affectionately. 'I would never have thought of it.' 

'But aren't you going to finish the story?' said the young doe who had never heard it before. 'What did El-ahrairah say when he found out?'

'Hush, and I'll tell you,' Hyzenthlay said. They all settled down to listen again, but not at all with the tense, ear-flicking quiet of before, when the bucks were there. 

'Well, El-ahrairah did wonder what Frith had meant, when he said that El-ahrairah's wives had asked for it, but he didn't want to ask them outright. But he had an inkling when he passed the preening blackbird, who, when he saw El-ahrairah going by with his heavy belly, began to sing of the Prince with a Thousand Enemies, the Prince with a Thousand Kittens In His Belly, the Prince of Tricks, who was so easy to trick himself: such a beautiful trick, a clever trick, the very height of trickery.' 

The does were rocking back and forth with laughter at Hyzenthlay's flamboyant blackbird imitation. '"Quit your warbling," snarled El-ahrairah. He went to his wives and asked them, "So. How did you bribe the blackbird to lie to me? And the yona? Did you gather slimy worms and beetles for them?"'

'"Oh no," said Hlalhyaothil. "They were quite happy to help us--we didn't have to bribe them at all. Remember when you fooled the blackbird into giving you all those berries he had gathered? I think he remembered that."

'"Well,' said El-ahrairah grudgingly, "It was quite a clever trick. I suppose I should be happy to have such resourceful wives." But he could not quite stand to hear the blackbird's song, and went to great lengths to avoid him.' 

'El-ahrairah gave birth to a litter of kittens in due time, and if you asked him, it was the best, the most beautiful litter of kittens that ever was born, with rabbits that grew up strong and fast and full of tricks.' 

These last lines gave rise to general amusement. The young doe asked, 'Is that the end of the story? What happened to Hlalhyaothil?'

'She lived a long life, full of rabbit cleverness and sunset silflays, and more kittens of her own,' said Hyzenthlay. 'And El-ahrairah, when the blackbird had new things to sing about and forgot to tease him about his kittens, often asked for her opinion. She went on to found a warren of her own in due time.'

There was a sigh of satisfaction. They could all forget, for a little while, where they were. Then Thayrtehain said, 'Will we, though? Get away and found a new warren?'

'We’ll try,' Thethuthinnang said. 'We have to.'

'Maybe Frith will give the General kittens,' said Hyzenthlay slyly. She was not quite out of the storytelling mood, and still triumphant over tweaking Foxglove’s nose, in however small a way. 

'Frith-rah,' muttered Brayanisth. 'That would be something to see.'

'Let’s sleep on it,' said Thethuthinnang, 'and make plans in the morning.'

And they did. They settled down together with the warmth of rabbit bodies all around them, and dreamt of better times to come.

**Author's Note:**

> I am aware that rabbits don't actually go into heat--they can actually mate and get pregnant at any time. But canon seems to imply that they do (see Hyzenthlay and Bigwig's subterfuge in order to conspire together in Efrafa), so I'm going with that. Plus, it serves the story.
> 
> The rabbit names are constructed using [this site](http://bitsnbobstones.watershipdown.org/lapine/overview.html). Hlalhyaothil = catching-the-future, Thayrtehain = river-song, Brayanisth = slow wind/breath.


End file.
